


Preaching to the Very Sad Choir

by Nardclup



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, basically just a lot of "oh man i know that feel" from both parties tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 20:27:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9459221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nardclup/pseuds/Nardclup
Summary: Jesse and Hanzo have a lot of emotions. Intense, volatile, aged-to-perfection emotions. Coincidentally, it's hard to keep that stuff in check when the only other guy in the room is having the exact same problem. But, really, why shouldn't the concept of a "double-negative" apply to this pitiful duo of anachronistic loners?Essentially, the boys sit around and talk about their feelings, and then end up having some more feelings.





	1. Sounds Good to Me, Sort Of

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't mean for this to be so lengthy... Still, now that it's all over and done with, I think I'd like to tackle some multi-chapter fics for other pairings in the future. No promises, but hey, it's a nice thought.

Hanzo wasn’t quite sure what had possessed him to tail the rogue who’d interrupted the morning’s Rikimaru shootout. If you asked him, he would say it was entirely out of curiosity; however, he wasn’t usually so openly curious about people. If you pressed him a bit more, he would admit to needing a dependable chauffeur to deliver him from the continent. This would be much closer to the truth.

Perhaps against his better judgement, Hanzo had pursued the unusually-dressed vigilante, who was understandably en route back to America. He purposefully intercepted him in a rather out-of-the-way spot, as both parties were very recently in the spotlight. In all honesty, the stranger’s leisurely pace was not hard to overtake, and the audible spurs allowed Hanzo to perfectly anticipate the corner he’d swing around.

Hanzo bowed just quickly and subtly enough to show that he had important, non-lethal business in mind. He wasn’t currently hostile, sure, but he had no plans to lollygag. “I saw the news. We’re both avoiding pursuit, and I assume you need a chaperone as much as I need an escape route.”

Jesse raised his eyebrows and, following a pause, slowly took the cigar from his mouth. “ _Woah,_ there… At least buy me dinner first.” He gave a lopsided grin; fitting for his demeanor, but not the situation at hand.

“Neither of us have time for games. And I’m not going to kill you. I don’t need to draw any more attention to myself.”

 “Well, I’d love to turn you down, but seeing as I don’t have any plans…”

 “I have the means to cover a hyper-flight. We can arrive in America before dusk, and go our separate ways. I just need you to get me that far.”

Remarkably on-cue, Jesse promptly straightened his back and held out his gloved hand at the very mention of financial compensation. “The name’s McCree. Jesse McCree, if you paid attention to the world gossip in the past couple decades. You?”

“Hanzo.” He curled his lip ever-so-slightly as he deliberately withheld the handshake.

Jesse wasn’t fazed by the physical gesture (or lack thereof) as much as the curt language. “Now, is that your first or last name?”

“I don’t trust _you_ with my family name.”

“Fair enough. And since you’ve already seen my gun in action… Which way to the airport, Shakespeare?”

The two criminals agreed that they could catch up on their platitudes once they had escaped all the prying eyes and cameras.

Hanzo had been able to score a ride with this ‘Jesse’ fellow due to three things equally: the man was naturally friendly, he too had no company to watch his back, and he found Hanzo to be uniquely intimidating. If you asked him, he’d say he was also pretty keen on the idea of having some company way out in the isolated mountains of New Mexico. He wouldn’t admit a connection between that idea and Hanzo’s particular brand of intimidation, though, no matter how much you pressed him.

Their subsequent conversation was remarkably concise, as Hanzo would have been perfectly fine to let any one of his sentences be the last for the day. Jesse kept finding more questions in every answer he got, and asking them kept being riskier every time. Hanzo consistently had but one question of his own: _’why am I putting up with this?’_

* * *

 

A few hours into the flight, at some moment or another, Jesse turned from his plane window towards Hanzo. “You, uh… you got anywhere to stay?” His tone was soft and oddly sympathetic.

“I don’t see why it matters, McCree—”

“Jesse. We might as well be friends here.”

“Alright, _Jesse_ … I don’t need to make any arrangements beforehand. I’ve done this sort of thing before. I can manage.”

“No one dressed like _that_ can ‘manage’ here without a middleman.” He huffed about three syllables of a laugh, shifting to feign a resumed interest in whatever dated novel he had been reading on his tablet. “You ought’a room with me for a bit.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“It’s not up for debate.” The smirk returned with a delicate shake of his head. “No need to thank me, either. Consider it payment for coming up with this idea in the first place.”

“I’m not sure I would _enjoy_ the home of someone dressed like _that._ ”

“If I can enjoy your company, you can enjoy my guest-room.”

“There’s a word for your ‘type’ in English, and I’m very glad that I know it: a complete _sap._ ”

Jesse laughed again, but for a good amount longer this time. “If I wasn’t so touchy-feely, we wouldn’t be here.”


	2. This Chat has Escalated Quickly

Regardless of what had or hadn’t been said between them, sunset found them safely approaching Jesse’s secluded one-story abode in a similarly modest truck. As they stepped out onto the dry scrubland, Hanzo took note of the complete lack of external décor. It was for a good reason, of course, but he had still spent his first 28 years in a very luxurious environment. This was something of a novelty, and he pondered it as he delicately side-stepped a tiny wildflower.

Jesse took the liberty of holding the door open with a grand beckoning gesture and a sarcastic smirk. “It ain’t much, but it’s a hideout.” Once Hanzo was inside, he locked the door again, hung up his hat, and set aside his glove and holster. He only shed his footwear after he saw Hanzo swiftly remove his own, though. The thudding and clinking of the boots against the tile seemed to be the duo’s definitive cue to finally relax.

Or, at least, it should have been. While Jesse downed a few glasses of tap water in quick succession, Hanzo slowly paced the living-room and surveyed his surroundings. Everything on the walls and shelves and quaint wooden tables just felt so weirdly _comfortable_. It helped that the place was mostly devoid of screens, too. This off-the-grid coziness was, to be honest, pleasantly strange.

Still, by the time Jesse had put up his serape and breastplate, body well-sunken into the left-hand side of a rather plush sofa, Hanzo was still treading in quiet loops around him.

“You wanna take a seat?”

“I suppose it would be a good idea.”

Jesse leaned over and patted the other end of his sofa, which Hanzo approached somewhat hesitantly.

He sat down in a deliberate, tightly-controlled manner, displaying perfect posture. The action, coupled with the very cold and delayed glance in Jesse’s direction, was the icing on the day’s very unsettling cake.

Jesse knew very well that the atmosphere wasn’t going to warm up on its own, nor would this intriguing man’s attitude, so he elected to do a bit of prodding. “Are you ever gonna tell me your last name?”

A tense silence ensued for a dreadfully agonizing 10 seconds. “…Shimada.”

“Oh.”

“ _Now_ you see.”

“If it helps… I don’t know much about the Shimada beyond their reputation. No real specifics I could accuse you of; only what I overheard in Blackwatch.” That was halfway a lie. He’d known Genji in the Overwatch days, but never got any solid backstory. Given the condition he’d joined in, that may have been for the best. “And, y’know, I’m open to being corrected.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary. I’m not entirely fond of the name, either. Not for a long time.” Slowly, he leaned back, his arms crossed and eyes shut. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”

Against his better instincts, Jesse’s face began to betray his concern. “You and me both, partner.” He was halfway-facing Hanzo, good arm over the back of the couch, intently focused despite his sleepy positioning. His ‘bit of prodding’ seemed to have morphed into a full-on cattle prod. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume you haven’t done much _socializing_ since you left ‘em.”

Another silence promptly settled over the pair—just as uneasy as the previous ones, but in a different sense. Hanzo let his hands slide down to settle in his lap. “…No.” A brief sigh escaped him, and when he didn’t hear an immediate response, he gave Jesse an uncharacteristically mournful look. It was rather subtle, but any amount of vulnerable emotion looked ‘uncharacteristic’ for him, and thus it was twice as formidable as his usual expression.

Brows furrowed, Jesse was trying his best to calculate exactly how many eggshells he should be walking on at this point. He didn’t want to overstep any boundaries, but he also got the sense that Hanzo needed to overstep his own. After a moment of thought, he met Hanzo’s gaze with one nearly identical. “I understand. It’s hard when all you know is killin’… Even if you want to try something else.” Jesse shook his head as if to say _‘it’s a damn shame’_ , though in that minute, he mostly felt sorry for his own clumsy phrasing. To him, it felt like he was trying to impress the entire U.N. while sipping cheap beer from a cowboy-themed paper cup.

“Absolutely… It’s not hard to believe that your Blackwatch affiliation left you just as unfit to return to society.”

“You kidding? Every day of my life, I was doing really shady stuff—“

“Legally, or morally?”

“Sometimes both. The worst part was that they kept tellin’ me it was for the ‘greater good’ or whatever. Yeah, I liked the people I was working with, but not the work itself.”

“Were you born into the lifestyle?”

“Sorta. I was a gangster in my teens. Typical hotshot smuggler. But the thing is, Blackwatch was _global_. Totally different scale. Got real old real fast, but at that point I was in too deep… ‘Til the scandal hit, of course.”

Hanzo offered a sharp, tense exhale. “If only I had been so lucky to leave the Shimada so impersonally.”

“Hm?”

“They had me take my training—my _indoctrination_ —one step too far. I was guilty and afraid. Malleable. They knew it. They made _sure_ of it. So I left.”

“Cold turkey?”

“Ice cold. One of my few decisions I don’t regret.”

“Jeez, Hanzo.” The only thought on Jesse’s mind was simply _‘yikes’,_ and with good reason. “I’m sorry for bringing this up.”

“It’s… it’s alright. I have probably surpassed the deadline to ‘bring it up’ by now, anyway.” The passive tone of his voice conflicted with the subtle distress upon his face. “I’ve been told I can still redeem myself. I doubt it’s as simple as it seems, however.”

Jesse adjusted his pose, attempting to find that perfect pose to relax in, as if physical comfort would help this emotional unease. “It ain’t _ever_ easy, but it’s nicer than the alternative. And, hey, better late than never.”

Hanzo nodded, pressing his lips into a tight seal that he wasn’t sure how to break. Soon, he averted his attention and turned to stare blankly at the coffee-table’s glossy finish. Racking his brain, he tried to find the best way to steer this conversation back into mindless small-talk, and from there into a polite request to be shown where he would be sleeping. The nondescript furnishings of a guest-bedroom wouldn’t be asking any prying questions; he could just gently rotate the little ceramic coyotes to escape their piercing glare.

Gradually, Jesse’s gaze wandered up Hanzo’s arm. The ornate navy-blue dragon, frozen in its bitter snarl, was easily the most chilling imagery he’d seen in years. Something about it felt painfully world-weary.

Still turned away, Hanzo spoke up again with evident reluctance. “What about your family?”

“Not much to speak of. Dad was never around. Deadlock rivals got to my mom when I was sixteen. No siblings, either.” Taking his eyes from that haunting serpent, Jesse warily looked up at Hanzo’s face again.

“I had a father who felt more like a military commander. He was _miserably_ strict. Nearly my entire social life was critiqued through the lens of ‘business connections.’ Truthfully, I may as well have been his own personal Bastion unit; he wrote the program, I executed it… But my younger brother was, for the most part, left alone. I resented his freedom.” Absentmindedly, almost instinctively, he lifted his right hand to rub the muscle of his left arm. His voice had now fallen to a pitiful murmur, laden with heavy pauses. “I saw him again recently. The first time in ten years.” His palm rasped steadily against his dry skin. “I don’t want to see him ever again.”

“Mm. Bad memories.”

“ _Horrible._ ”

“I’ll be honest with you here: I’ve got friends out there somewhere—older, younger, my age—but I’m not about to send _any_ of ‘em a text. Don’t want to burden ‘em with my sob story.”

“Although... there is something to keep in mind, while we’re considering being social again.” At last, Hanzo resumed eye-contact. “It’s nicer than the alternative.”


	3. All's Well that Ends Cuddly

Jesse suddenly felt the strangely paternal need to grab the nearest throw-blanket and place it upon Hanzo’s shoulders, and the thought wasn’t entirely due to the man’s exposed limb. Feeling such a potent sense of sympathy wasn’t a common occurrence for Jesse these days, and it was even more peculiar for him to be so readily capable of relieving the issue. Perhaps he could finally bring himself to stop playing hot-potato with his own emotions, and instead dig into their decidedly unsavory source. He reached for the throw-blanket.

It was patterned with a vibrant desert landscape and smelled distinctly of mesquite smoke, but it was still warm and comfortable, and as such Jesse was quick to unfold it and drape it over the troubled man beside him. Though initially unresponsive, Hanzo soon caved and willingly bundled himself up once Jesse started trying to tuck him in with a metal arm. He couldn’t resist smiling faintly at the affectionate gesture, especially given how unexpected it was. Normally, such kindness would only signify that a potentially lethal bait-and-switch was underway. He almost wanted to list aloud the martial arts he was trained in, just to make sure, but something told him that such threats wouldn’t be necessary. Maybe it was the fact that Jesse was currently in closer proximity to a tiny potted cactus than his own unloaded gun. That was a rather telling clue.

Impossibly nervous, Jesse was running through a lengthy mental checklist of other little things he could do to help Hanzo feel cozier. He would bring out some snacks, but he’d been away from home for about two weeks and thus had only a few unflattering non-perishables left. Hanzo didn’t seem like the type to appreciate a humble offering of beef jerky and fruit preserves, and with good reason.

He would play a bit of music softly over the home stereo, but he didn’t want to risk picking something that Hanzo would immediately reject for whatever reason. Hanzo’s tastes were probably high-class, and Jesse knew better than to waste this chance he’d been given on cheesy saxophone solos.

Eventually, after about two minutes of contemplation, Jesse hoisted himself up to his feet with a safe and simple fallback in mind. “Gimme a sec to help you get a little more comfy.”

“If you’re going to fetch more throw pillows—”

“Nah, somethin’ else. What, that one next to you not fancy enough?” He strode across the room towards the back door of the cabin.

Hanzo glanced down at the small pillow nestled against his right thigh, which had _“the Lone Ranger rides again”_ embroidered in black script on the eggshell-white fabric. He silently noted its outdated tackiness, although he realized the irony almost immediately. “…I like it, actually.” That was, shockingly enough, not a lie. In his slight bashfulness, he smiled very lightly.

“Oh? What a pleasant surprise, then.”

“I’ve always been one for the more, well, _vintage_ aesthetics. Of course, I’m sure you could already tell.” Self-consciously, he reached up to tug the ribbon from his ponytail, and his hair slipped down into an endearingly messy bob. He then rolled up the shiny ribbon and stashed it in one of his pouches, trying to coolly play off that fashion statement as being a perfectly common choice. “An affinity for tradition was essentially the Shimada price-of-entry. It’s still rather comforting to me, even now.”

Jesse whistled in amusement as he clicked a lighter and sparked the fireplace’s hearty stack of wood. Perhaps now, with the glowing heat and the soft white-noise, the last shreds of awkwardness could be stamped out. “You’re a man after my own heart, Hanzo.” In a weak attempt to shake off that remark’s flirty undertones, he chuckled, but the sheepish turn of his head towards nothing in particular wound up betraying his effort. Apparently, things were still a touch awkward. He collapsed back onto the couch with a huff, a bit closer to Hanzo than before. “I don’t even have a good excuse; I just like this stuff. If anything, I guess I mostly like the ol’ living-outside-the-law theme that cowboys always had.” He tilted his head up against the back of the sofa with a lazy grin. “I try to think of myself as the more _romanticized_ kind, y’know? Not the sorry one barely scrapin’ by in the desert all by his lonesome self.”

Shifting his arms to better wrap the blanket around himself, Hanzo was caught off-guard by how remarkably poignant Jesse sounded. “You’re one of the last people I would expect to be this sentimental.”

“Well, don’t go tellin’ everyone about it. Not a whole lot of people get to see this particular side.”

“A shame.”

“Uh, pardon?”

“I… enjoy this side, to put it so eloquently. You seem very _genuine_. That’s rather hard to come by.”

At a complete loss for words, Jesse nudged Hanzo’s upper-arm with a loose fist with as if he were a timid youth again. This coyness was almost certainly the result of spending 6+ years in emotional solitude, and he was painfully conscious of it, which only made matters worse. He didn’t know how to deal with feelings beyond regret and contempt, and he definitely didn’t know what to say to the distraught angel who had so graciously blessed his sad little cabin.

“Don’t act so shy, Jesse. You’re in the same unfortunate spot as I am.” At that, Hanzo had a very strong and unsettling sense that he was currently forming a legitimate emotional bond. Mortified, his stomach dropped at the sheer unfamiliarity. It was nearly foreign to him at this point. Regardless, it was irresistibly enticing, and Hanzo was well-aware that he was long past the event horizon. Looking fatigued and fed-up with himself on a deep spiritual level, he straightened himself. “Come here.”

Cautiously, almost disbelievingly, Jesse scooted himself closer.

A few nerve-wracking seconds passed. Both men would have been able to hear the other’s pulse, had their own not been so loud. Then, with the leisurely pace of someone trying to savor their first bite of a banquet, Hanzo reached out and slid half of the blanket around Jesse’s shoulder.

It was all Jesse could do to feebly tug the edge of the fabric down over his body, slowly allowing himself to lean against Hanzo and close the gap. He wanted to make a smarmy comment, or even any other sort of speech, but for once in his life he was wholly tongue-tied. He felt something bubble up inside him—something stamped down by Deadlock and pinned there by Blackwatch. As if in a trace, he delicately looped his good arm around Hanzo’s left, bracing his scruffy cheek against that well-inked shoulder. “Thanks…”

It very well may end up taking several months straight for Hanzo to truly open up, but at least he was on the right track. Somewhat mirroring Jesse, he dipped his head to press the side of his face to Jesse’s hair. He hadn’t realized how much he’d truly missed affectionate contact until now. It was better than he remembered.

“It’s not gonna work, y’know. Not completely.”

That statement was, to a mild extent, anticipated. “… _What_ won’t, exactly?”

“I mean, we’re gonna be messed up and sad for a real long time. We can’t fix that. No one can.”

Hanzo could feel the low rumble of Jesse’s voice, soothing in spite of its baggage, permeating some dusty nook in his heart. “Of course. It would surely be easier to bottle everything up again.”

“It’s _real_ damn easy to just give up, huh?”

“Very tempting.”

“Yeah, you bet.” Reluctantly, Jesse pulled himself up into a more dignified posture. “But I’ve never really been the kind to back down from a challenge.”

“Nor have I.” The blanket was still draped across the duo’s shoulders; Hanzo gave it a few confident tugs here-and-there to reaffirm that.

“Well then, Mr. Shimada… care to saddle up with me? I think I’d be a li’l less blue if you stuck around, after all.”

“It would be my _pleasure,_ Jesse.”

Maybe that lonely hillside cabin didn’t have to be quite so lonely anymore.


End file.
